Environment and economic efficiency: an analysis of some polluting Italian industries

this research presents an extension of the directional distance function model to measure performances for firms which produce a large number of pollutants and operate in different industrial sectors. I use this methodology to estimate productivity indexes on a sample of Italian firms that were forced to declare their emissions to the European Pollution Release and Transfer Register in 2007. A proxy for the environmental regulation’s cost is derived and results show a significant impact in term of potential value added lost. Estimations also reveal differences in mean environmental performances among industries; furthermore, the effect of pollution control follows the same path.Directional distance function, Environmental regulation, Polluting industries

Green manufacturing and environmental productivity growth

Purpose: Due to stringent regulations on carbon emissions, green manufacturing has become a critical issue in manufacturers’ strategic planning. Manufacturers are greening production through carbon abatement activities. This study aims to investigate the factors that influence the effects of carbon abatement on environmental productivity growth. Design/methodology/approach Using data envelopment analysis with directional distance function, this study examines productivity growth associated with carbon abatement under regulated and unregulated production technologies. A pollution abatement index is constructed for determining the effects of carbon abatement on environmental productivity growth. Panel data of eighteen European countries in paper and pulp and coke sectors are collected for the analysis. Findings The empirical findings reveal that carbon abatement may positively or negatively affect environmental productivity growth which is dependent on the nature of technology in a sector, the innovation capabilities of a country and environmental regulations. Originality/value Conventional approaches in measuring productivity changes do not normally take undesired outputs (e.g. carbon emissions) into consideration. This study contributes to literature by constructing a pollution abatement index that considers productivity changes under a joint production technology (where both desired and undesired outputs are considered). The findings enhance current understandings on the effectiveness of carbon abatement activities and help managers establish corporate environmental strategies to adopt green manufacturing

Kuznets curve and environmental performance: evidence from China

The paper investigates China’s environmental performance-economic development relationship for the time period of 1965-2009. The results indicate that after 1990 China increased its environmental performance mainly driven by the implementation of several environmental policies. In addition when we taking into account several factors contributed to China’s economic growth, the empirical evidences suggest the existence of an inverted “U” shape relationship between China’s environmental performance and economic development. However, when only the influence of the industrial sector is taken into account the shape of the established relationship changes from an inverted “U” to “N” shape, indicating that the main determinant of China’s environmental inefficiencies over the years was the heavily industrialization.Environmental performance; Environmental Kuznets Curve; China; Economic Growth

CO2 emissions reduction of Chinese light manufacturing industries:a novel RAM-based global Malmquist-Luenberger productivity index

Climate change has become one of the most challenging issues facing the world. Chinese government has realized the importance of energy conservation and prevention of the climate changes for sustainable development of China's economy and set targets for CO2 emissions reduction in China. In China industry contributes 84.2% of the total CO2 emissions, especially manufacturing industries. Data envelopment analysis (DEA) and Malmquist productivity (MP) index are the widely used mathematical techniques to address the relative efficiency and productivity of a group of homogenous decision making units, e.g. industries or countries. However, in many real applications, especially those related to energy efficiency, there are often undesirable outputs, e.g. the pollutions, waste and CO2 emissions, which are produced inevitably with desirable outputs in the production. This paper introduces a novel Malmquist-Luenberger productivity (MLP) index based on directional distance function (DDF) to address the issue of productivity evolution of DMUs in the presence of undesirable outputs. The new RAM (Range-adjusted measure)-based global MLP index has been applied to evaluate CO2 emissions reduction in Chinese light manufacturing industries. Recommendations for policy makers have been discussed

European industrial eco-efficiency under different pollutants' scenarios and heterogeneity structures. Is there a definite direction?

Eco-efficiency has intensified the attention of policymakers in the last decades as the ability to create more goods and services with less impact on the environment consists an instrument towards sustainability. In this paper we utilize data of 14 industries from 27 European countries from 1995 to 2011 to estimate distinct objectives of economic and ecological performance by utilizing directional distance functions under a metafrontier framework. Our results reveal that the existence of a unified technology set causes large differences in the industrial eco-efficiency levels while energy intensive industries can be characterized as the most eco-inefficient .Although the speed of eco-efficiency convergence increases throughout the years, the case of CO2 emissions presents an erratic behavior compared to the other pollutants. Thus, a decomposition of industrial CO2 emissions can be considered as a further subject of research in our study in order to identify the drivers of this change through time

European industrial eco-efficiency under different pollutants' scenarios and heterogeneity structures. Is there a definite direction?

Eco-efficiency has intensified the attention of policymakers in the last decades as the ability to create more goods and services with less impact on the environment consists an instrument towards sustainability. In this paper we utilize data of 14 industries from 27 European countries from 1995 to 2011 to estimate distinct objectives of economic and ecological performance by utilizing directional distance functions under a metafrontier framework. Our results reveal that the existence of a unified technology set causes large differences in the industrial eco-efficiency levels while energy intensive industries can be characterized as the most eco-inefficient .Although the speed of eco-efficiency convergence increases throughout the years, the case of CO2 emissions presents an erratic behavior compared to the other pollutants. Thus, a decomposition of industrial CO2 emissions can be considered as a further subject of research in our study in order to identify the drivers of this change through time

Eco-efficiency measurement and material balance principle:an application in power plants Malmquist Luenberger Index

Incorporating Material Balance Principle (MBP) in industrial and agricultural performance measurement systems with pollutant factors has been on the rise in recent years. Many conventional methods of performance measurement have proven incompatible with the material flow conditions. This study will address the issue of eco-efficiency measurement adjusted for pollution, taking into account materials flow conditions and the MBP requirements, in order to provide ‘real’ measures of performance that can serve as guides when making policies. We develop a new approach by integrating slacks-based measure to enhance the Malmquist Luenberger Index by a material balance condition that reflects the conservation of matter. This model is compared with a similar model, which incorporates MBP using the trade-off approach to measure productivity and eco-efficiency trends of power plants. Results reveal similar findings for both models substantiating robustness and applicability of the proposed model in this paper

Environmental efficiency, irreversibility and the shadow price of emissions

Assessing the production of goods and services while minimizing the damage to the environment is a key component to advance sustainable development at national and global levels. The nonparametric estimation of lower and upper bounds on shadow prices of pollutants is undertaken to support the design of policies promoting environmental efficiency in the presence of asymmetry in adjusting productive and abatement capital capacity. This framework is applied to the pulp and paper sector of 39 countries for 1996-2009, and finds that the USA, China and Ireland are the most environmentally inefficient countries in the pulp and paper sector. The adjustment costs associated with net investment and disinvestment are found to be asymmetric. For those nations where the shadow price of CO2 is lower than the carbon tax, there is still an opportunity to abate emissions further. Results on complementarity or substitutability between pollutants are in general inconclusive.M. Magalhães acknowledges partial financial support from the Spanish Government and FEDER Funds under projects PGC2018-093542-B-I00, PID2019-107161GB-C33, and from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia under the Project UIDB/04007/2020. Funding for open access charge: Universidad de Málaga / CBU